People have asked me whether I have a science background. No, but I have a great curiosity about the kinds of things we do on 'Discover.'

You cannot simplify human intelligence, emotion, and growth. To watch the frills and furbelows of a human psyche is fascinating.

I think we were born 6 feet tall and then started to grow from there. My dad's not particularly tall - only 5 feet, 11 inches - but his mother was almost 6 feet and straight as a ramrod: a German woman who used to scare the hell out of me.

I don't know the secret of 'Mission: Impossible''s success. If I did, I'd have probably produced a couple of TV series, made myself rich, and retired!

Why did the earthquake and tsunami occur in Japan? Was it the act of an angry God? No, it was the result of the movement and collision of the earth's tectonic plates - a process driven by the earth's need to regulate its own internal temperature. Without the process that creates earthquake, our planet could not sustain life.

Lord sanctify us. Oh! That Thy spirit might come and saturate every faculty, subdue every passion, and use every power of our nature for obedience to God.

Poverty is relative, and the lack of food and of the necessities of life is not necessarily a hardship. Spiritual and social ostracism, the invasion of your privacy, are what constitute the pain of poverty.

I think that man has a fundamental obligation to extract from himself and from the earth all that it can give; and this obligation is all the more imperative that we are absolutely ignorant of what limits - they may still be very distant - God has imposed on our natural understanding and power.